Why Can't We Talk About How Much We Make?

Making the case for salary transparency.

All this week, ELLE.com will be unpacking what we've dubbed the Work Life issue—as in, the tricky subtext that informs everything other than the actual mechanics of the jobs we're paid to do.

I was paid $400 to write this particular column, and as a freelance writer I earn about $65,000 a year. I pay $1,250 per month in rent for a one bedroom apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which I share with my boyfriend. I have no 401K—yet—and I filed an extension on my 2014 tax return only because the $3,000 fee to extend my U.S. working visa seemed more important. (Sorry, IRS.) I have no credit card debt, but I still owe $15,000 in student loan repayments, which I know needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. I am not a "trust fund" baby, nor do I receive any financial support from my family. Despite all this, I like nice things (perhaps unwisely I see no problem spending $800 on a pair of Valentino shoes), and I like to travel at least a handful of times a year.

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That, right there, is the bare bones of financial me, and I am totally ok with telling anyone who is interested enough to ask. But since moving to New York from New Zealand four years ago, I have learned that my candid financial transparency is not only uncommon, but actually frowned upon amongst my peers, colleagues, and even some of my closest friends. I have no idea how much they earn, if they have any debt, how much they pay in taxes, how they pay their rent, how much they save per month or squirrel away each year, or if they still receive money from their parents as they enter their thirties. (Insight into the latter, I know, would ease a lot of the "how does she do it?" anxieties many of us share but rarely talk about.) Yet I know the most intimate details of their romantic relationships, I know what turns them on sexually, I know if they have had an abortion or gone through a miscarriage, I have been there to listen to, and give council on, their deepest and darkest fears. And I find this phenomenon very, very strange.

Thankfully I'm not alone. Earlier this month, Pittsburgh-based software programmer Lauren Voswinkel started the hashtag #talkpay, which asks people to tweet their job titles, experience levels, and salaries in the hope that employers might finally be forced to address pay inequality and wage discrimination. So far the hashtag has generated more than 26,000 tweets, mostly from people in Silicon Valley who are curious to see where they sit within the tech sector. But #talkpay has not only exposed the pay rates of people who work at Google and Facebook; it has uncovered deeply entrenched presumptions that speaking openly about wages is still considered inappropriate: braggy from those who earn a lot, or whiney from those who don't. (The newly launched Twitter handle talkpay_anon, which allows you to anonymously post to #talkpay, proves that despite the fact that President Barack Obama signed an executive order last week prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who publicly disclose their compensation, many of us are still too scared to dish how much we earn.)

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"People feel sensitive about how much money they are making, they feel there is an overwhelming concern that they're going to be judged by it," explained Dr. Ryan T. Howell, an Associate Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University, and co-founder of Beyond the Purchase, which allows individuals to discover how their spending choices affect their happiness. "There is also a strange wealth guilt some people feel if they make more money than other people, and an awareness that they could make others feel uncomfortable by letting them know how much money they have," he added. I posed this idea to a few friends who, by society's standards, are considered well-off, and they all agreed that revealing their earnings would make them feel "uneasy." One friend who wished to remain anonymous admitted that if she were "broke" and stressing about making rent or paying taxes, she would feel more inclined to talk about her exact earnings with others. "As someone who is not in dire financial straits when many of my friends are (or feel like they are), it just doesn't seem like an important detail in the larger narrative."

These primal definitions we attach to money (from power and control, to freedom, peace of mind, and security, to love—giving money without strings attached or giving money with strings attached) indicate that we, as a society, too often conflate earning power with success and personal value, and regard a low income as a result of poor choices or even moral failings. "I think people are generally afraid that if they reveal they make less than one of their friends they'll be regarded with pity, while if they reveal they make more they'll be treated with resentment," said Jennifer Wright, a friend of mine who is set to make her first six-figure salary this year after publishing her first book. Jenna Sauers, a friend who is currently completing her MFA in Iowa, earning "much less" than she did working as a full-time writer, agrees that money is hard to talk about because "so many other things are wrapped up with it: notions of personal value, power, success, prestige, intelligence."

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So how did money become so emotionally charged? Rooted in politics passed down through generations, America's competitive and capitalist ethos of the Protestant work ethic shaped how our parents and grandparents think and feel about money, which ultimately rubbed off on most of us. "A lot of money issues are trauma carried forward from how you were raised around money, and whether your parents gave you a lot of negative messages about it," explained Dr. James Gottfurcht, the president of Psychology of Money Consultants, as well as a board certified money, career, and life coach. "Whether it was fear or insecurity, or criticism and judgement as in 'You're only as good as how much money you make', when we get those money messages growing up there is a lot of emotional angst associated with it."

Again, I turned to my friends to ask whether this reflected their own upbringings, and the consensus was unanimous: they were taught to work hard for it, but to never talk about it. One friend, who also asked to remain anonymous, put it more simply in an email. "OH GOD SO MANY ISSUES WITH PARENTS AND MONEY," she wrote. "Money was emphatically not discussed. My parents didn't disclose any financial details with us children; and when my parents lost large amounts of money, they disclosed it in a very hushed, backhanded way, vaguely alluding to a tightening of belts. I was also taught never to talk about my successes, because it was considered bragging and 'nice girls don't brag.' So when it came to having successes, financial and otherwise, later in life, I felt like I wasn't able to share them."

This idea that we shouldn't disclose information about finances is so deeply ingrained that it has remained unchallenged for decades, with no one ever really championing an alternative way of thinking. Dr. Kristy L. Archuleta, who edits theJournal of Financial Therapy and is an Associate Professor of Personal Financial Planning at Kansas State University, believes that if we start to open up about money in our families and with our own children, "it will be more likely that people can talk about money more comfortably overall." Could a new level of financial transparency lead to positive societal changes, from building closer, more open relationships, to perhaps even increasing pay for minorities, or bridging the gender wage gap? "It definitely could! It's an important question to ask," she admitted. Voswinkel agrees, and believes that our lack of financial transparency is directly related to the gross wage inequality we are facing today, where women are almost twice as likely to retire into poverty, with Hispanic women earning54 per cent less than a white man, followed by black women at 64 per cent.

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"We need to push harder to make open discussion of salary a commonplace occurrence," wrote Voswinkel for Model View Culture. "Without a general understanding of the ranges of salaries their peers are earning, many people are left to simply throw a number on the table. Typically [women] vastly undersell themselves… Discussions of pay need to be happening, not only within individual companies to discourage pay inequality at that level, but across the discipline so incoming people, particularly minorities, have realistic expectations of what their skills can earn… talk with your friends about salaries to get an understanding of what you SHOULD be making," she implored.

Though many companies state that sharing salary information is a fireable offense, it is actually illegal under the National Labor Relations Act to so much as threaten retribution for sharing individual earnings, let alone actually fire someone. "Employers are often engaging in illegal behavior in order to discourage open discussion of salary information," Voswinkel revealed, adding that "unless people have realistic expectations of what they can make based on open pay discussions [with friends, family, and colleagues], existing pay inequality will continue to be perpetuated." Dr. Gottfurcht agrees with her: "Transparency is important. Money is such an emotional issue, triggering emotional responses—so the more overt and transparent we are about it, the better off we, as a society, will be," he said. "Talking about money can lead to empowerment and positive outcomes, it doesn't have to lead to fear and anxiety. Not talking about it makes the problems worse. Suppressing communication and information leads to less understanding… and nothing gets resolved."

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So how do we start talking about money in a more open and honest way? Awareness is a "very powerful" first step, said Dr. Howell. "What people are willing to talk about —the intimate details of their lives—is very surprising, but they feel talking about money is inappropriate. Getting people to ask why it's considered taboo in the first place is very important." And if you want to talk about money with your peers, letting them know that there is no judgement attached to your questions, that it's not going to affect your view of them, is crucial, he added. Direct, respectful communication is also key: sarcasm, or using passive aggressive tones, is only going to make money more threatening and contentious. "You need to have a good intention to talk about money—a pure, clean intention," said Dr. Gottfurcht, adding that "people need to be more open and transparent about their motive for talking about money—that in itself will lead to more trust."

Ultimately though, it's up to us, and how we communicate with our children, to help future generations feel more comfortable discussing money—free of judgment, anxiety, and fear. "The long process is to change what is taboo earlier on," explained Dr. Howell. "Getting parents to be open with their kids about finances; having frank conversations, teaching them to have a healthy, positive relationship to money whatever their financial situation, and not to be embarrassed when these things come up," he said. Indeed, this is how I was raised: to discuss money with no emotional attachment, without judgement, resentment, jealousy, or need. Success was never based on monetary achievements, and I was taught to view others in a similar light. I asked Dr. Howell if he knew of any studies that could help me look into the idea further. No, he admitted. "It's an interesting conversation we're just not having in this country. There is limited research on the topic, and that proves we're not talking about it—at all."